


Something Else

by Yossk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Gen, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov-centric, POV Natasha Romanov, Pre-Avengers (2012), SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21621499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yossk/pseuds/Yossk
Summary: The rollercoaster of that last fight was being repeated in her stomach. She pressed a hand to her thigh. The bleeding had stopped. It was barely a graze. She'd been off-balance, her finely-tuned inner ear a touch out of kilter, her body landing one extra inch to the left.Another inch, and she'd have been bleeding out on a sparkling marble floor.She swallowed hard and forced herself upright.Either way, this was going to get her killed....Choice, and change, and how it might still have been.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Laura Barton & Natasha Romanov, Nick Fury & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 32
Kudos: 58





	1. The beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this pretty much since I published Balance. I don't know why it's taken so long. It's changed form several times, been both much shorter and much longer than it is now. I've moved house (yay) and had to take much less time off sick (double yay) but both of those mean I've struggled to find as much time to write! But it's finally come together, and it's time to let it out into the world. Please let me know what you think.
> 
> This is pretty heavy - skip to the end of the chapter for warnings.  
>   
>   
> 

It started early one morning with a strange taste coating her tongue, like milk gone off and mixed with vinegar. Natasha retched into the toilet bowl before breakfast, and again afterwards, the eggs and coffee and juice sour and harsh on the way back up.

She deeply regretted allowing Clint to drag her out to a Chinese buffet the night before, all bright fluorescent lighting and greasy plates. It had been almost designed to induce migraines and food poisoning. 

Clint, when she ran into him at lunch, was well and irritatingly cheerful as he dug into something resembling a chicken pie.

“I hate you.”

“What have I done?”

She just looked at him witheringly, tentatively dipping bread into soup and trying not to vomit.

…

It happened again the next day, and again the day after that, until eventually Natasha stopped attempting breakfast at all. On day five, there was a niggle at the back of her mind, a nagging worry about stomach ulcers and cancer and poison. 

It had taken her a long time to trust SHIELD’s canteen, to trust food provided by someone else, when she didn’t know where it came from, who had prepared it, what could have gotten inside.

She bought groceries. Every day a different corner shop or supermarket or indoor market stall. She chopped vegetables in the tiny kitchenette in her apartment, packing salads into plastic tubs and pretending it was just a health kick. In the back of her mind, she tried to work out how they'd found her.

When she couldn’t avoid the canteen, she traded food with Clint, like she used to, long ago. He noticed, his eyebrows rising, but he didn’t comment.

…

The vomiting continued. Two weeks, then three.

…

“Nat?”

“What?” It came out angrier than she meant it, but she was so goddamn tired and the taste of bile was becoming more familiar than the taste of bread.

She was starting to feel afraid.

“You alright in there?”

Clint was hovering outside her bathroom door.

“Fine. What are you doing in my apartment?” She wiped her mouth and stood up. There was a tremor in her hands and she closed her eyes, breathing slowly to still it.

“Checking up on you.”

She opened the door, “I’m fine.”

“You’re sick.”

“I’m fine.”

He sat on the swivel chair at her desk, feet up on top of a pile of files and paperwork. He swung around and a small wad of paper floated slowly to the floor.

“You’re making a mess.”

“You are a mess.”

“Thanks.”

She sat on the sofa and laced her shoes.

“I’m due on base.”

“No you’re not.”

He swivelled back to face her.

“You think someone’s poisoning you.” He said it calmly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “I think you’re being paranoid.”

She laughed, bitter, “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Go and see a doctor.” His eyes were soft with concern and something else indecipherable. She hoped, for his sake, that it wasn’t pity.

“I'm fine.”

“Not a SHIELD doctor. We can find someone else.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Nat, for god’s sake.”

“I have somewhere to be. And stop breaking in.”

She left, slamming the door behind her.

...

Natasha flew to Rome, spent three weeks manipulating ambassadors and hacking into servers until she finally weeded out the security leak that had lost SHIELD six missions and two agents.

For three weeks she swallowed down bile and vomited in alleyways, her head span and everything she ate threw a party inside her stomach. She smiled and threatened and flirted and fought, holding on to herself so tightly that she wore four little half-moon scars into the palm of each hand.

Her head rested against the cool porcelain tile of the hotel bathroom wall, one fist pressed against her mouth. Coulson was waiting for her go-ahead to send in the tac team, and she dragged herself across to her purse, abandoned by the door. A text message pinged across the world and she slumped against the hard wooden surface, letting her eyes drift shut.

The rollercoaster of that last fight was being repeated in her stomach. She pressed a hand to her thigh. The bleeding had stopped. It was barely a graze. She'd been off-balance, her finely-tuned inner ear a touch out of kilter, her body landing one extra inch to the left. 

Another inch, and she'd have been bleeding out on a sparkling marble floor. 

She swallowed hard and forced herself upright.

Either way, this was going to get her killed.

...

"Clint." 

"Yuhuh."

He was fletching arrows at his kitchen table, his tongue sticking out between his teeth as he worked with the tip of his penknife. There was a photograph perched on top of a pile of papers: Laura and Cooper, laughing, half-hidden in the long grass of the field behind their home. He shifted it to one side out of the way, turned the arrow to get a better angle. Natasha didn’t move from the sofa, a novel open on her lap. Her body stiffened in anticipation, held perfectly still.

"I-" 

Clint looked up.

"I need help."

"You need a doctor."

"Yes."

"I know someone."

"I don't want--"

"Outside of SHIELD."

"Good."

"I'll come with you."

"Ok."

He didn’t say I told you so, didn’t say thank God, I was so afraid you wouldn't come back this time. She could feel it though, see it in his eyes.

He just nodded, and waited.

...

Natasha took the phone number Clint passed her in the corridor the next day, called the number and texted him later with a time and a place, a week from then.

...

The air was cool, goose-bumps prickling her skin.

"Tasha?"

She barrelled through the waiting room, past out-of-date magazines and discarded children’s books. Past the old lady complaining loudly about the wait and the cried-out toddler sniffling pathetically in its mother’s arms.

"Tasha!"

Plastic creaked as Clint jumped to his feet behind her. She was bathed in warm air as she pushed her way out of the air-conditioned reception, half-running towards the setting sun.

He caught up with her a few yards down the sidewalk, matching her pace. Silence stretched out between them, a void in the hustle and bustle of people enjoying the summer evening. Two miles, then three, until her heart-rate calmed and her blood ceased to boil and she could face the question in his eyes. She turned, veering off into a park, sitting down suddenly with her back pressed against the rough bark of a tree. She looked up at him, squinting into the light.

He dropped down next to her, "Natasha," He paused, drew her full name out slowly along its whole length, "What the hell?"

She didn’t answer directly, but tugged at a blade of grass and shredded it between her fingers. Scorn dripped down her throat. "Where did that guy qualify?" 

"Chicago Med School." Clint responded, his voice mild as he watched grass seed flutter away on the breeze. 

She looked at him sharply, narrowing her eyes and swallowing hard.

"Nat?"

"What?"

Clint sighed, kicking his feet out and leaning backwards, cushioning his head on the soft earth, "Never mind."

They waited, watching the sky turn pink, orange and, finally, grey. She spotted a cloud shaped like Cooper's favourite toy bunny, and idly wished for a camera. The ground was cooling, damp soaking into the back of her t-shirt when she could finally bring herself to speak.

"You're wrong."

"About what?"

"What you think is wrong with me. I can't--" She stopped and shoved both hands in her hair, raking her fingers through it and grimacing as they snagged on the ends. Her throat was tight with anger. Then she smiled at him as though he was a slightly slow child, "Don't you think they took care of that? I’m not pregnant." 

Clint swallowed. 

"What did he say?"

She scoffed, fingertips whitening as her hand balled into a fist, "Same as you. Won't do anything until I've peed on a goddamn stick. As if I don't know my own fucking..." She stopped and closed her eyes for a second. There was a couple walking past a handful of yards away, sharing food out of polystyrene cartons. The greasy aroma of kebab wafted over on the breeze. 

Her mouth filled with saliva and she pressed her lips together tightly, glaring at them. The couple disappeared around the corner, blissfully unaware of how close they'd come to being the victims of a violent double-homicide. She swallowed, breathing slow and steady, and pulled out the empty plastic vial shoved hard in her pocket, "He told me to come back in the morning."

“I can find you someone else.” He gave her the ghost of a smile, his eyebrows still creased in concern, “I have a list.”

She paused, the bitter taste of bile on her tongue, and shook her head, "Fuck it. It doesn’t matter. I need to know. He can have my piss if he wants it that much.”

"SHIELD medical--"

"I need to know before they do."

"Ok."

The sky was darkening, the air getting cool. Clint bounced to his feet and held a hand out, "Can we go inside now? Preferably somewhere with food?"

She rolled her eyes at him and took the proffered hand. Her fingers trembled and she tightened her grip, rolling fluidly to her feet. 

Her stomach still roiled, "No kebabs, and nothing with a buffet."

"Deal."

...

They found an Italian cafe still serving and pigged-out on garlic bread and spaghetti. Natasha picked up the tab and they walked the long way home, Clint relaying his newest theory about Coulson's love-life whilst she counted the stars and mapped the ones that told her this was _now_ and not _then._

...

Her front door lock clicked and Natasha started. She blinked, struggling to remember how long she'd been sat here, staring at a little row of white sticks on the edge of the bathtub. 

There was a knock at the bathroom door, a voice calling her name, but she was stuck under the surface and she couldn’t seem to answer. She spread a palm out on the floor, and it should have been cool and hard but she couldn’t feel it. And her head against the towels hanging on the rail. It should have been soft, but it wasn’t, it was nothing, like she was floating in a cloud of nothing.

The door opened.

"Nat.... oh." He paused. In her cloud of nothing, there was Clint and he'd stopped, and she wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she did. 

A second passed, maybe two, it was hard to count without being able to feel the thrum of her own pulse. And then Clint was touching her shoulder, and she didn’t react because she knew he was there, but she couldn’t feel it.

"Come on, let's get out of here." He grabbed her by both arms and she tried to help because, really, she didn’t want to be in there any longer either. They both stumbled out into her living room. It was all orange and grey, lit in long shafts by the streetlamps outside. It hadn’t been dark, before.

Clint steered her towards the sofa. She shook her head and directed them towards the kitchen table, to worn wooden chairs and straight backs, hard and solid and real. Her brain was switching itself on in sharp fits and spurts and she put her hands on the table and watched them as Clint boiled her kettle and set a mug of too-sweet tea in front of her.

He sat across from her. He didn’t say anything, just sat and waited and she hoped his brain was a little faster at processing information than hers was. He'd been called into a meeting with Coulson first thing, been occupied all day and, in a way, she was glad. Some things were better to be on your own for. 

"I'm pregnant." 

She said it out loud so that they would realise how ludicrous it was. So that Clint would laugh and explain to her why she was wrong. But her voice was hoarse and too loud and it crackled out into the silence, reality forming around the words. Clint watched her like he was afraid she was going to break open in front of his eyes and said nothing at all.

"This was never supposed to... I don't know how it happened."

His eyes widened slightly and that was not what she'd meant but _oh_ , his face was a picture. She couldn’t help it; she let out a noise that must have been meant to be a giggle, but her body gave way to hysterics that terrified her even as her shoulders shook with mirth. Because the thought of it, of immaculate conception and Mary mother of God, and then of who she was, and what she had done. She clenched her hands on the table.

He watched her for a moment and shook his head, mildly embarrassed, "Ok, I get it."

Natasha sobered slowly. The smell of tea made her want to vomit. She shrugged, "After Krakow. I just needed to feel."

He waved a hand dismissively. "It doesn’t matter.” And then, “You've got to tell SHIELD."

She closed her eyes briefly and clenched her fists before shaking her head. She didn’t need that, didn’t need to tell them she’d screwed up. "I'll take care of it."

"Nat. You can't"

She turned her gaze to him, voice low, "Say that again."

Clint was lucky she was still in shock, and that was why she was still just staring at him, rather than throwing him out the door. He paused, his voice eerily calm. “You don’t know what they did to you.”

It wasn’t a question, but his voice lifted a fraction at the end of the sentence. He was so close to the line, so close to messing with things he just did not understand, but Natasha shook her head once. Just one more chance. She owed him that. There was an angry tremor in his words. 

"You need to get checked out by someone who knows everything you can tell them. They’ve fucked something up and that...embryo could be in your fallopian tubes, or outside your womb entirely, or...” He paused, “It could kill you. You’ve got to take this to SHIELD."

Natasha didn’t say anything for several minutes. Something had taken a hold of her insides and replaced them with something squid-like; squirming and shifting and no longer belonging to her at all. She reached a hand towards her stomach, pressing down as though she could feel what was underneath, if only she tried hard enough, know every cell. It was all just flesh and muscle. Hard and soft and slightly unfamiliar beneath her hand.

Finally she nodded, "Ok."

Clint sagged, and Natasha smiled weakly at him, watching her hands as she spread her fingers on the table.

They sat there the rest of the night, the tea going cold and the cells continuing to multiply.

...

As the sky paled and the light turned more grey than orange, Natasha blinked and stood up. Her chair screeched harshly against the kitchen tile and Clint jerked from his slumber. He lifted his head off the table and looked at her questioningly.

"I'm going for a run."

It was just shy of 5.30. Clint scrubbed a hand over his face. She didn’t wait for him to ask where she was going after. She was already in her bedroom, discarding yesterday’s jeans and pulling on new clothes, suddenly desperate to be outside, to be able to see the sky. 

She was out of the apartment two minutes later, the door slamming hard behind her. Cool morning air rushed over her face and she breathed it in hard, the world stretching out, open, above her.

...

Natasha's heart-rate rose and fell as she ran, the same as always, her breath quickening and sweat cooling on her skin. Outside Fury’s office, the thin carpet-tiled floor felt the same beneath her feet, and there was a familiar flicker from the third light fitting along the corridor, whispering against the backs of her irises. It was hard to believe that anything had changed at all.

"Romanoff."

"Director."

If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it. The iris scanner granted him entry, and he gestured at her to follow, "Unless you just happen to like this bit of hallway?"

She followed him through the door, stopping behind a chair with her fingers resting on the back. The grain was rough against her skin.

He sat and looked at her pointedly, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I—“ She stopped and smiled slightly, “I'm pregnant." 

It was the second time she'd said it aloud, but the crackle of reality forming around the words was no less audible.

"Ah."

Fury’s expression was impassive, the implications and consequences sliding together in his brain: click, click, click. Coulson’s face would have softened, he would have cared too much. But Fury strategized, processing calmly and clearly behind an expression of steel.

Finally, he spoke, "What do you want to do about it?"

The answer that came out was not quite what she’d intended. "Not die, ideally."

He nodded once, "Good choice," and turned to his computer to type a few messages, the clicking of the keys louder even than the roaring in her ears. Natasha waited.

"Report to Dr. Canton in medical at eleven." 

“Sir."

Natasha turned and left. There was a prickle at the back of her neck as his one eye watched her all the way down the corridor.

….

The gym was cold, the air-con on too strong and Natasha opened the windows to warm it up, a wasteful contradiction that made her unreasonably angry, frustration racing around her brain. It filled her mind so she didn’t have to think about anything else.

She trained on her own, spinning and twisting and leaping, one death-defying stunt after the next. She gained a small audience, new agents fresh from Shield Academy, waiting for a group session. They startled as one as she leapt down in the midst of them, snarling at them to stop staring. Someone strode over from the other side of the room, drawn by the commotion.

“Hey, Romanoff, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” 

Agent Morse was at least a head taller than her and Natasha could see the funny side, even as she pivoted around to face her. The balloon filling her head with hot air was deflating, other thoughts leaking in and she closed her eyes for a second, grasping onto the fading rage. Bobbi gestured her head towards the sparring mats in the middle of the room, “Want to give them a real show?”

Natasha shrugged, “Your loss.”

The fight wasn’t long, but her focus kept scattering, a few lucky hits when she’d normally take none at all. Bobbi finally tapped out, looking up with a crease between her eyebrows. She didn’t say anything, although it would have been lost to the echo and noise as the gym filled.

The clock said 10.45. 

“One more round?”

She shook her head, “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

The crease was still there. Natasha left another room with a pair of eyes watching her go.

…

The water ran, steam filling the shower cubicle. Natasha hesitated, half-dressed. She’d pulled clothes on in a daze that morning, barely registering what went where. She feared her own body, feared that knowledge would have changed it beyond recognition. 

The door slammed. Someone moved outside. She stripped, scalding hot, in and out, barely touching her own skin at all. 

…

“Tell me what you remember.” Dr. Canton’s voice was business-like, softened at the edges. Her glasses were too small for her face. It was distracting.

“It was a long time ago,” she said.

The doctor’s eyebrows knitted together and Natasha focused on the rims of her glasses, on how the hairs deformed as they passed in and out of the lens, “What about before? Or after?”

Her hand fluttered towards her abdomen, stopping just short of touching it. She didn’t know what she was expected to say. The doctor was still watching her, waiting, and her throat tightened. “I think I shot a man in the head that morning. Is that what you want to know?”

Her lips compressed and her eyes slid away. Natasha stood and strode towards the door, daring the woman to stop her. She hadn’t come here to be judged.

“Agent Romanoff, wait, please.” A microscopic pause, “I’m sorry. Please sit down.”

Natasha halted. The apology was unexpected and she sank, unsure how to react.

“When was your last period?” Dr. Canton’s eyes met hers, hands folding in her lap.

She lowered herself back into the chair, “Ten weeks. But it’s never been regular.”

Dr. Canton pushed her glasses up her nose, “I’d like to do an ultra-sound. We’ll get a clearer picture, at this stage, if we can do it internally. Would that be ok?”

Natasha’s breath came a little faster, and she swallowed, “That might be an excellent way to jog my memory.”

She grimaced, “Ok. Not yet then. We’ll see what we can establish externally, and discuss where to go from there.”

She nodded, heart steadying, not sure how to feel about being incorporated into a ‘we’ with this woman, as if the problem was somehow theirs to share. 

“Follow me.”

“Now?” She looked up in surprise, “Don’t you have other appointments?”

“No, just you.” Natasha frowned, “I don’t work here often.” She smiled, “But I owed Nick a favour. He’s a hard man to refuse.”

Dr. Canton left the room and Natasha followed blindly down the corridor, her brain checking-out even as it orchestrated her feet to step one in front of the other. There was a bed and a screen, gel cold on her stomach and she responded to the doctor’s questions in monosyllables. A crack ran across the ceiling, from one corner to the ceiling rose before branching off in two directions. 

“Agent Romanoff?”

“Mm.” She watched the crack.

“Your pregnancy is not ectopic. As far as I can be sure at this stage, the foetus will be viable. You’re not in any immediate danger.”

“Right.”

 _That’s good,_ she thought, _isn’t it?_

…

Forty eight hours. Nothing more. An appointment in a private clinic, the day after tomorrow. The parasite, the little bundle of cells growing in her womb would be gone. 

Natasha sat on the roof of her apartment building as the sun went down, DC spread out before her. The temperature dropped rapidly, summer giving way to the crisp, cool air of autumn. She was set outside herself, waiting for her body to be vacated before she could fully occupy it again.

“Hey.”

Clint pulled himself up the fire escape and vaulted the parapet to land silently beside her. He was a cross between a shadow and a lost puppy. She couldn’t seem to shake him. She probably didn’t want to.

“Hey.”

“So?” He prompted, perching on the arm of the bench they’d dragged up one dark winter afternoon.

So what? 

“I have very persistent fallopian tubes.” 

“Good to know.”

“They were blocked. But they grew around.” She paused, “It’s funny, I always assumed they’d done something less… subtle.” Her fist spasmed. She stilled it, knuckles turning white.

“And the embryo?”

“In the right place, apparently. I have an appointment on Thursday, to get rid of it.”

“Good.” Clint said, but he looked pensive, “Tasha—”

“Hm?”

“You know you don’t have to—”

She stiffened, “Don’t, Clint. Just because you have a kid doesn’t mean we all want one.”

“But if you did, you could. That’s all I’m saying.”

Natasha shook her head stiffly. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to. She watched the clouds drifting across the sky. The wind was picking up. It was going to rain.

“Do I have to torture it out of you?”

“Huh?” Clint frowned at her.

“I know you followed Coulson on Monday night.” She shifted to tuck one leg underneath her, “And I bet he does too.”

Clint chuckled. It was not entirely forced. “Nah. Nothing good. Concert at the Kennedy Centre. _Alone._ ” His exaggeratedly hang-dog expression was late in coming.

“Shame.”

“There’s something going on. I’ll get it out of him eventually.”

Natasha smirked at the fiery sky, “Sure you will.”

…

The screen was white, bright white, a supernova against her retinas. She squinted in the dark, eyes itching with tiredness. The report was mind numbingly dull. And badly spelled.

If you did, you could.

She shut her eyes, concentrating. The threads were slipping. The web of names and circumstances and connections was loosening as she read. She needed coffee. She stood to refill the machine, clattering in the grounds and water and setting it to heat. 

Her stomach lurched.

She forced it away. She craved caffeine and her goddamn traitorous stomach wasn’t going to take that away from her. She waited, swallowing bile and watching the drip drip drip of dark liquid into the jug.

You know you don’t have to—

She clenched her fingers on the counter-top. Barton’s goddamn American dream. _Come with me to the west and you’ll be free forever._ The trumpets fanfared and she laughed humorlessly. 

Wherever she went, however long she lived, she would never not be what she was.

The jug filled and she poured herself a mug, wrapping both hands around it and letting the warmth seep into her. The report continued: dense and confusing and badly put-together. She glanced at the author’s name. Some new recruit. Agent Ward would be getting an earful in the morning. She blinked a few times and waded on through it.

The night was eerily quiet, the hum of traffic and shouts of passersby strangely muted through the open window. Natasha read and typed notes and sipped coffee, swallowing hard after each mouthful and waiting for the chemicals to spark life in her brain. 

Her mind drifted downwards. She clenched a hand on her thigh, nails digging in, little pinpricks of pain. She’d been so goddamn stupid. Not that she’d been completely unprotected, she didn’t have a death-wish, but pregnancy hadn’t been on her radar, hadn’t been a risk she’d thought she was taking. Clint called her paranoid but she wasn’t nearly careful enough.

“Fuck.”

She snapped the lid of her laptop closed. The chair tipped back and bounced against the floor as she stood. Choice is an illusion, Barton, get out of my head.

Her heart was pounding and adrenaline rising, an endless, awful roar in her ears. That walls were too close and the ceiling too low, the carpet beneath her feet so soft it might swallow her up.

She saw his hand held out to her, felt the pain of his arrow searing through her shoulder. Your choice.

The window opened smoothly and silently at her touch, the impact of the pavement absorbed by her knees and her shoulders as she landed hard and rolled across the ground. The glint of a yellow-eyed cat appeared, held still and startled before it turned tail and fled into the bushes.

Natasha took stock for a moment, counting parked cars and wheelie bins stacked like soldiers; cataloguing the scrubby patches of grass and the blackberries, sticky and overripe, weighing heavy on her neighbour’s fence. She tasted one. It was sour and bitty. She spat it out and walked fast down the street: red Volkswagen, silver Ford, beige BMW with a new dent in the passenger-side door.

Around the corner, she broke into a run, feet pounding the pavement, license plates flashing by. A honk cracked the air as she flew across the road a hair’s-breadth from a front bumper. 

A mile passed before she was panting and tight-chested, head spinning. She ducked sideways into an alleyway. Her vomit tasted of SHIELD cafeteria curry, chilli and spices burning her throat as she gagged on lumps of soggy naan. The rough wall was cool against her right hand, the fingers of her left tangling in her hair as she leant over and tried not to douse her socks.

Eventually it was over; a final heave and radioactive, sour-tasting bile hit the concrete. She took a few steps backwards, spitting and wiping her mouth, leaning heavily against the opposite wall. The bricks were cool and she rested her back against them, calming her heaving breaths. She counted, in and out.

The acrid smell turned her stomach and she gathered herself to walk onwards, to sink eventually into a worn wooden bench at the edge of a park three streets away. The grass was damp. She should have worn shoes. Her eyes drifted shut and her teeth clenched. 

_Get a grip, Romanoff. Get a hold of yourself._

…

“Barton!” She pounded on the door, hinges threatening to crack, “Barton, let me in!”

There was a scuffle, a muffled crash and a cascade of swearing. The lock ground and clicked and Natasha pushed past him into the living room.

“What the hell?” Clint was standing in his boxers and an old t-shirt with sleep-ruffled hair but eyes sharp and alert. “What’s going on?”

 _“Fuck you.”_

“Charming.” He smirked at her and his voice was light, but he was searching her eyes warily.

Natasha took a step forward, backing him towards the door and he raised his hands in surrender, “Woah, ok.” His voice softened and his eye narrowed, “Talk to me.”

It was nearly dawn, the light turning grey and his face was in shadow. Natasha backed off, putting the kitchen table between them and gripping a wobbly chair with both hands.

“I don’t have a choice.”

Clint’s eyes widened, his expression settling.

“I am a murderer, Clint. I am a tool and a weapon. You don’t get to tell me I can be a mother just because I have a functioning womb.”

“Tasha…”

 _“No.”_ Her voice rose, nearly shouting, “That’s what I am. Don’t pretend that I’m not.”

“I’m a father.” His voice was unbearably soft and it made her want to hit out, to scream and rage at the comparison.

“You’ve killed. You’re not a killer. It’s not the same.”

Clint opened his mouth to argue, and Natasha stared him down, daring him to tell her that she was wrong, that her assessment of her own life was not what she knew it to be. His mouth closed, jaw stiff and set.

She breathed out through gritted teeth, “Can you imagine who would give their right arm to get hold of a child of mine? Can you imagine what they’d do? _Don’t tell me I have a choice._ ”

Air whistled between his teeth, “Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok. I won’t tell you you have a choice.”

He was watching her like there was more to say. She turned away from him, took four slices of bread from his cupboard and dropped them in the toaster, depressing the lever with a forceful snap. A scour of his fridge revealed three home-made jams which she placed, clack clack clack, in a neat row on the scuffed table. 

“You want some?”

He shook his head.

“Then what do you want from me?”

“You woke me up.”

She shrugged, “It’s morning.”

He groaned and disappeared into his bedroom. The toast popped and Natasha slipped into a chair, spreading Laura’s jam in a thick layer over the first slice. She chewed slowly. Her stomach growled. She continued to eat.

Clint appeared in the doorway in worn jeans and a new t-shirt. The smell of toothpaste wafted over as he crossed the room, running a hand through his hair. Natasha gave him a half-smile around a mouthful of food, and a slight shrug of one shoulder.

“Coffee.”

The machine whirred, grounds rattled into the filter and two mugs clinked as he removed them from the cupboard. She looked up. He was staring at her.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded warily.

“What are you thinking?”

“I—“ she shook her head, “Laura makes good jam.”

He took a seat across from her and they waited for the coffee to brew. Her stomach greeted the fourth slice of toast with enthusiasm.

Clint had his chin in his hands, staring at the jars lined up in front of him. He barely stifled a yawn. “Coop tried to help last weekend. With the blackberry picking. I don’t think he understood they were supposed to go in the bucket and not all over his face.”

Natasha’s lip twitched. 

“You should come over more often. Laura misses you.”

She shrugged, “They’re your family.”

“They could be yours too. If you’d let them.”

The toast was gone and her stomach was steady. She poured the coffee, clinging gratefully to her mug. Clint added copious quantities of milk and sugar to his and sipped slowly. She stared into it, catching a glimpse of her own dark reflection: pale and exhausted, with deep shadows under her eyes. 

Her brain sparked. A mad, impossible idea that somehow spilled out before she could hold it back. Scrubbing a hand over her face, she muttered into the steam.

“You could take it.”

He stiffened, “What?”

“You and Laura. You said you were thinking of trying again.”

“That’s not—“

“Not what you meant? I know. But I’m growing a child I don’t want, and you do. It’s just wasteful to make another one.”

Looking up, she willed him to understand what she couldn’t express aloud. _Let me make this choice. It’s the only one I have._

A few minutes passed. Natasha wondered if he was going to respond at all.

“Go home, Nat. Go to bed—“

Her whole body tensed, “Don’t treat me like a child.”

He was eerily calm. “Go to bed. Get some sleep. Tell me you feel the same way tomorrow.”

She discarded the coffee and scraped her chair back, swallowing hard.

“Nat…” His voice softened, “You burst into my apartment in the middle of the night, swore at me, and then asked me to adopt your child. I’m gonna need some time.”

“It’s nothing, forget I said anything.” She turned away from him and prepared to leave, shame burning up her throat.

“It’s not nothing.” Clint exhaled, taking his third laborious sip of coffee.

Natasha left silently, her socks leaving damp footprints on the carpet.

…

“Want a coffee?”

“Hm..?” Natasha looked up in the middle of a financial report, her mind a rolling ticker-tape of numbers.

“Coffee…? You know, the brown caffeinated stuff?” Bobbi Morse was standing next to her, gesturing at the empty mug under her computer screen. 

“Yeah, sure.” She shoved the mug at her, and turned back to the screen. The numbers had stopped rolling; it was a mess of scattered figures with no pattern. She scrolled back to the top of the document and started again.

“Black, no sugar, right?” Her mug reappeared on her desk and the numbers scattered. Natasha swore under her breath.

“прости.”

“Of course you speak Russian.”

Bobbi shrugged, “I’m learning.”

“Swear words first?”

“Is there any other way?” She grinned and dropped back into her chair, spinning it around, dirty blonde hair spilling out behind her. Natasha gritted her teeth, closed the report and started on the bitter coffee. It wasn’t important. It could wait. Clint’s dismissal in the early hours echoed around her skull and she gripped the mug tightly, casting around for something, anything else to focus on.

“I really am sorry. I didn’t meant to distract you.”

Natasha shrank from her earnestness, “It doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes narrowed, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Bobbi watched her for a second and turned back to her computer screen, “If you want to talk about it…” she trailed off, “Barton doesn’t always get it.”

Natasha pretended not to hear, shutting her computer down and gathering papers scattered haphazardly over her desk. The lock of her drawer clicked as she shut it all away. 

“Thanks for the coffee.”

She headed for the stairs, spiralling down, round and round, through security and out into the glass-filled atrium. The clacking of shoes and chatter of agents echoed around her. She paused in the doorway, the Potomac shimmering to her right, the busy street ahead lined with cars and pedestrians and cyclists.

The pavement was solid beneath her feet, and she followed it away from the Triskelion, across the Mall, past the bus station, wending her way through the streets as though she’d find an answer, if she just walked on. As if she’d turn a corner and _there_ on a billboard or a bus shelter, _that’s it, that’s the way._

She had been on a track, bound to one obvious course of action and now… there wasn’t a fork, it wasn’t right or left, but a cliff had appeared that she could throw herself off, if she really wanted to.

And there was a little part of her that was wondering just what might happen if she dashed herself on the rocks at the bottom.

A cemetery loomed ahead, gravestone after gravestone disappearing over the crest of the hill. It wasn’t a day for wandering amongst the dead. She took a right, vaulting over the chain-link fence into the Arboretum, disappearing into a world of intense green. But the greenery was a lure, a mirage. It wasn’t Mother Nature here but man’s attempt to tame her.

Natasha pushed towards the undergrowth, away from the tarmac paths and neatly mown lawns, away from the adolescent saplings and their lonely oases of freshly raked soil. She found a clump of feathered ferns, trees tall enough to block out the light, and she settled in amongst them, watching the shadows and the sunlight dappling across her hands.

She been here before. Or somewhere like it. The grass scrubbier, the tarmac crumbling beneath her feet, but the same feeling of man-made wilderness, of urban order imposed upon the chaos of life. There had been a flash of red brick on her left, a laughing glance over her shoulder as she’d darted off through the trees. She’d ran and not been afraid.

She watched a ladybug journey across the leaves between her hands, focused intently on the movement of its legs and folded the impressions away at the back of her mind. That girl was gone. If she’d ever existed in the first place.

There was a frantic buzzing, sudden against her hip. She started, and the ladybug took frightened flight. She wriggled awkwardly sideways to liberate her phone from the pocket of her jeans, half crushing the ferns with her knees. Clint’s name flashed insistently. 

She let it ring out and waited for the buzzing to begin again. The ferns sprang back to life as she settled back into position and she plumped at a few bent leaves, coaxing them into shape. 

_Clint Barton_

It flashed up again. She should have switched it off, lost the damned thing in the undergrowth and lost herself in half-forgotten flashes of nothing. It would have been easy, for a little while, to sink into the trees and disappear.

The phone stilled.

Natasha thumbed slowly through her missed calls. 

It buzzed again. She answered.

“Hey.”

“We should talk.” 

“Should we?” Her retort was sharp. His voice was achingly calm and she wanted to lash out, to feel blood and sweat beneath her fists.

“Nat…” He sounded strained, “Did you mean what you said last night?”

“Which part?”

“You know which part.”

Clint’s creased leather couch creaked as he shifted, the nervous tap tap tap of his fingers against the worn arm, “I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

Natasha looked up, squinting through the leaves above her. Within him sat in front of her it was easier to pretend that she was talking to herself.

“I can’t be a mother.” That, she knew in the marrow of her bones, like she knew she was left-handed or that the cloudless sky was a clear cerulean blue, “I’m barely functional as a human being and I can’t- I can’t drag someone else into that.”

Clint’s breath at the other end of the line was even, the tapping of his fingers had ceased. He was waiting.

“But maybe… maybe I could be something else. I don’t know,—“ She stopped, screwing her eyes shut, the hard plastic of the phone digging into her ear. Her voice was thin and horribly hesitant and she wanted to stop, to rewind, to be anywhere but here. “I haven’t had many choices. Even joining SHIELD— I was going to die, one way or another. And I want to make a choice.” Her voice had lowered to barely a murmur, vulnerability bleeding into shame. 

The silence was heavy.

“Ok.” 

Natasha swallowed, forced herself onwards, “If this won’t work for you, that’s ok. I’ll choose something else.”

She didn’t say: they took everything from me, they carved out my body and my mind, tore me apart and reformed me. They took away my chance to have a family long before they touched my womb. But maybe now my body’s fighting back. If I choose to do this, maybe I’m fighting back.

“I said ok.”

“What?”

“I’m flying home tomorrow. I’ll talk to Laura. You’re right. It could work.”

“Clint, you don’t—“ All of a sudden, she wanted to take everything back. She was standing on the edge of a yawning abyss, teetering over nothingness. _What was I thinking?_ This was worse than an arrow in the shoulder, far worse than owing her life and her will. This was entangling herself so inextricably… it was a debt that she would never, ever be able to repay.

“I don’t—“ Her breath was coming too quickly, her throat tight, sharp little gasps that weren’t serving oxygen to her brain.

Clint stilled at the other end of the line, “Nat, where are you?”

“The Arboretum.” It came out choked, lost in the roar of pounding blood.

“What are you doing out there?” The amused sharpness of his surprise was the thread that pulled her through.

“I walked.” 

“What can you see?”

She looked around, chest tight, catching a glimpse of red in her clouding vision, “A ladybird.”

“What’s it doing?”

“It flew away. I think I scared it. But then it came back.”

“What else can you see?”

Natasha focused on the soil beneath her foot, grinding her heel into the dirt.

“There’s a couple of woodlice. A snail.” The syllables were short and clipped, but her throat was opening, her heartrate slowing, “A spider.” She watched it, admired its perfect stillness and wondered if it might, in fact, be dead.

“What sort of spider?”

“Eight legs. Pretty huge.” She breathed out through her teeth, prodding it delicately with the toe of her boot. It sprang to life, scuttling a few steps, eying her warily. She felt strangely relieved. “Eight eyes. As big as my head.”

“Ok, very funny.”

Natasha took a deep, steadying breath. The chasm was still there. She’d backed away from the edge. It seemed smaller, at a distance.

“Alright?”

“Uhuh.” She dragged her thoughts away from the shame that threatened to overwhelm her. It’s ok to trust. It’s ok to ask for help. _It’s not it’s not it’s not._

Clint’s couch creaked as he stretched out, “Can we meet? Do you want pizza?”

She thought for a moment. The idea of grilled cheese, grease pooling in its folds, made her stomach turn over. “Pastry.”

“…and pizza?”

Natasha choked out a laugh, “Don’t push your luck, Barton.”

“Nino’s, then?”

“Give me half an hour. I’ll find a cab.”

She unfolded herself from the undergrowth and wound her way back to the tarmac path. A bouncing terrier yapped furiously at her as she emerged between the trees. She vaulted over the fence one-handed, the other still holding her phone to her ear, the soundtrack of Clint’s scramble for a matching pair of shoes and his keys lending rhythm to her thoughts. 

“What do you want?”

“Enough sugar to make my teeth rot.” _I’m eating for two_ , she nearly said, but it was too much, too fragile an idea and she swallowed it down before it could drag her back to the edge. 

“Coming right up. See you there?” There was a lift at the end of the sentence, an unspoken second half to the question: _or do you want to stay on the line?_

“See you there.” She answered, ending the call and hailing a cab, her shoes muddying its pristine interior as she slipped into the back seat. 

“13th and L” She threw at the driver who nodded, disinterested, and pulled out into the fast-flowing flood of mid-afternoon traffic. She caught a glimpse of his face in the rear-view mirror: tired, bored, a twitch of irritation at the corner of his right eye. A lighter band of skin circled the ring finger of his left hand and his t-shirt was rumpled. It was boring and clichéd and predictable. Other people’s lives so often were.

Out on the street, she watched through the glass: sharp-suited businessmen with briefcases; lethargic students with backpacks and messengers bags and armfuls of books; chaotic young parents with babies in strollers, corralling toddlers and lugging diaper bags. People shouting and talking and crying and laughing. Card-carrying members of society. Boring, clichéd. Predictable.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t had lunch. _Did I eat breakfast?_ She stepped through the night: the stumble home from Clint’s apartment, the restless sleep and uneasy dreams, the painful racket of her alarm clock. _A banana._ That was it. After she showered, but before she dressed, wrapped in a towel on the sofa because she’d suddenly had to eat that moment. She breathed a little easier. It was all there. The days ran together, but there were no gaps, no disjointed moments that didn’t make sense.

The cab pulled up, bouncing half onto the pavement. She handed the driver a twenty and didn’t wait for the change. Clint was a distorted figure through the window, sat at a table in the back corner, half hidden behind an enormous plate of pastries.

She didn’t want to go in. The phone had been different. The phone hadn’t been real. It had just been her, in her head, playing at _what ifs._ This was stupid. Her life was dangerous enough as it was. She loitered for a moment, looking away down the street. _Fighting back._ Was that really what this meant? Was she gaining control or losing it? 

The bell tinkled as the door opened.


	2. Jemima

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She took the package with a brief smile. The pharmacist was distracted, peering over her shoulder at the impatient elderly gentleman next in line. Jemima pushed her glasses up her nose with one hand and wandered down the aisles towards the heavy door onto the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This completely mad idea I had one day continues... 
> 
> Still pretty heavy, same warnings apply.
> 
> Also, I don't watch trailers, so please don't talk about anything from the Black Widow trailer in the comments.... thank you :-)

“Jemima Hutchinson?”

“Yes?”

“First line of your address?”

“16 Elmhurst Court.”

She took the package with a brief smile. The pharmacist was distracted, peering over her shoulder at the impatient elderly gentleman next in line. Jemima pushed her glasses up her nose with one hand and wandered down the aisles towards the heavy door onto the street. It took a long, hard boost with her shoulder to pry it open. A pharmacy that hadn’t heard of ADA: Was that ironic, or just inconvenient?

She pondered the question as she stepped off the curb, splashing one foot into a large, muddy pothole. Negligent. That’s what it was: negligent. She determined for the umpteenth time to have her prescriptions re-routed to the CVS down the street. _Fighting for the little guy be damned._

The grocery store was blessedly empty when she stopped to stock up on bread and vegetables on the way home. Her left foot squelched, cold muddy water soaking down her green and yellow sock. She idled by the croissants and filled a paper bag with three, then four. She was eating for two, after all.

“Jem!”

 _Damn it. Damn potholes and damn croissants._ In her deep contemplation of pastries, she’d failed to notice the figure approaching from her left and now she was enveloped in a suffocating hug and the sweet, sticky scent of cheap perfume.

“How are you?”

She extracted herself carefully. The croissants were crushed. _Protect at all costs._ She stifled a laugh. 

“It’s been _ages._ ”

It had been three days, but whatever.

“Hi Marjory.” 

“It’s Marge, I’ve told you.”

But she’d spent too much time watching _The Simpsons_ to do that, so she persisted with Marjory. The woman in question was looking at her intently, perfectly curled strawberry blonde hair quivering with well-meaning enthusiasm.

“How _are_ you?” she repeated.

Jemima shrugged, “About the same as last week really.”

“I’m so glad I ran into you. I’ve _got_ to show you this… hang on.” She rummaged through her over-sized purse, producing a purple onesie still attached to its hanger, “Look. Isn’t it adorable?”

It was pretty cute. Jemima smiled, “Nice.”

Marjory caressed the soft cloth with a sigh and tucked it back in her purse. “What about you? You must have bought something by now. I bet you have the best taste.”

Jemima looked down awkwardly, a light flush creeping up her cheekbones. Her left sock was dull and brown. “I dunno.” She shrugged, “It’s thrift-store stuff mostly.”

Marjory’s forehead creased with well-meaning pity, “That’s it. I’m taking you shopping.”

“What? No, really, it’s fine.” She spoke fast, galloping over the words and twisting the bag of croissants between her fingers, “Actually, there’s this one towel-thing with a dinosaur hood and it’s adorable. It’s basically not been used. Babies grow so fast don’t they? Most of the stuff’s basically new.”

“Next week. We’ll go shopping next week.”

“Er… maybe.”

“See you soon, Jem. Enjoy your croissants!” Marjory breezed away as suddenly as she appeared. Thankfully, without setting a date for the shopping trip. Did she realise that’s not how conversations are supposed to work? Listening to the other party was normally important. But whatever, the croissants had survived. That was all that mattered.

Weariness swept over her as she loitered in the pastries aisle. She glanced at the potatoes and onions in her basket. Too heavy. She’d get them delivered. She paid for the bag of croissants and walked out to her too-small-for-suburbia car. Her left foot was wet and uncomfortable and the baby chose that moment to wake up, shifting and jamming an elbow into her ribs. She wasn’t going to be able to keep driving much longer. The steering wheel was uncomfortably close.

She drove slowly, concentrating on each turn of the wheel and gentle push on the gas. She pulled into her driveway and got out, walked five steps and turned around, remembering to lock the car. Halfway up the stairs to her duplex, she stopped again: _Shit, no vitamins._ Back down, open the car door, grab the pharmacy bag off the passenger seat. Lock the car. Up the stairs. Unlock the front door. 

She closed it gently behind her and slid the bolt home. She shed her coat just inside, her scarf on the back of a kitchen chair. Her glasses, she placed carefully on the table. Natasha Romanoff discarded the trappings of Jemima Hutchinson like a snake shedding its skin. 

She made a beeline for the bathroom. To piss, rather than to vomit. _How times change._ And then sat on the sofa, pulling apart a croissant and trying not to scatter crumbs over the floor. It was slightly stale, but it was four o’clock in the afternoon, so what did she expect? They’d probably been sat out all day. 

It was, she discovered quickly, literally impossible to eat a croissant without scattering crumbs to at least three of the four winds. She swept them up and moved to the table, took out a plate and hunted through the fridge for something that might make them less dry. Butter was the best she could find, softened in the microwave. It wasn’t quite what she had imagined, standing in the pastries aisle, not quite the same as fresh from the oven on a Sunday morning, with homemade jam and Cooper running around in baffling hyperactive circles. 

Clint had tried to convince her to stay, that first weekend, but she couldn’t do it. Laura had understood. Cooper was too young to understand, but that wouldn’t stop him remembering when he’s older, remembering that Natasha got fat, and then suddenly there was a baby. Or the milkman, or the postman or the cashier in the grocery store. They didn’t live on the moon, despite their seclusion, and it would have been far, far too easy for the right person to put two and two together, should they come looking. 

Natasha couldn’t risk that. 

She didn’t even think about it, not for more than a few seconds at a time. Her brain steered her away, before the dread set in, before it froze her guts and she couldn’t even think. She saw them everywhere, they—

One croissant left. She’d save it for breakfast. It couldn’t be any staler by then. 

Her memory drifted: Laura, hands sure on the kitchen knife, herbs mulching under her fingers as she’d prepared dinner six months ago. Natasha had been waiting. For what, she hadn’t been sure. The blade going _crunch crunch crunch_ , delicate on the chopping board. 

“Do you want to help?”

She’d been directed to a bowl of chicken breasts, her own paring knife twirling absently between her fingers as Laura has described the size and shape she wanted. Cooking was a skill she was still learning, the movements repetitive and emotionless. There was no intention to each slice with the knife, no connection. It was almost meditative in its dullness.

She’d worked away at the chicken and a pile of vegetables. Laura had whisked an egg, adding herbs, a pinch of salt, no measuring or deliberating, just a sure eye and an even hand. They hadn’t spoken other than necessities, hadn’t needed to.

Natasha had tossed the vegetables in oil and left them in a tin ready for the oven, watching Laura’s hands move from the chicken to the egg to a bowl of flour, a pile of battered nuggets growing on a chipped blue plate. She’d still had the knife in one hand, spinning absentmindedly. She’d come to know its weight, the way it balanced on her finger, the way it would spin through the air before slicing into flesh. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, to discover those things, but an instinct. Wasn’t that what everyone did, when handed an unfamiliar tool?

There was a twist in her stomach, the sinking feeling before a memory of regret. She took the last croissant out of the bag and tore at it, pretending to mistake the gnawing feeling for hunger. The baby kicked and elbowed her again. _Shhhh, little one, it’s ok._ She placed a light hand on her stomach. _Nothing to fight in there._

There was a shift and she settled. Maybe she could hear her, or feel the light pressure on her side. Natasha liked to convince herself she could, but more likely she was just done, warm in her cocoon of fluid, nothing but instinct in the neurons of her still-forming brain. She closed her eyes to picture it, the peace of it, but instead she saw the Bartons’ kitchen, a tiny paring knife still twirling in her hand.

There’d been a noise, a great galumphing and giggling and chasing around the landing. Clint had thumped down the stairs, Cooper tucked under one arm, his face red with laughter. He’d saluted, a half-formed automatic gesture which Laura had returned with a piece of chicken in one hand, before commencing a tickle attack on the sofa. Natasha had watched them, thought _yes, please, this is what I want her to have_ (she’d thought of her as ‘her’ even then, couldn’t have imagined carrying a boy. She was always a ‘her’). 

And then Clint had stood up, leaving Cooper breathless and giggling into the cushions. He’d leant against the gnarled wooden post holding up half of the upstairs landing, and made some comment about dinner not being ready yet, about having to find new staff. 

Natasha had laughed, and casually threw the knife at his head.

It had landed, one inch from his ear and one inch deep, exactly where she’d put it. Completely harmless. 

But Laura’s eye had gone wide, her hand frozen in the bowl of egg. Clint’s should have been calm. They did this to each other all the time. In the canteen at SHIELD, in the gym. In Fury’s office, once. He’d put them both on admin duty for a month. It wasn’t a big deal. Cooper had been buried in the sofa. He hadn’t seen. And the post was old, scarred with Cooper’s height in blue and black biro, and a burn mark from Laura’s experiments with a blowtorch. The notch was barely visible.

The silence had grown weight, nausea creeping through Natasha’s gut. Cooper had stopped giggling, scrambling up, curious at the sudden stillness of the adults around him. Clint had been quicker, his hand reaching up to grab the knife, placing it smoothly and silently back onto the countertop. A charge had passed between him and Laura before he’d scooped Cooper back up from the sofa and taken him outside. 

“Give us a shout when dinner’s ready.”

He hadn’t looked at Natasha on his way out, too wrapped up in the child squirming in his arms, in whatever had passed between them, with Natasha stood slightly apart, aware that that knife should have stayed in her hand, but not exactly sure why. He’d picked a glass and a plate off the floor, placed them gently on the coffee table. He took care in that house, in a way that he didn’t bother in the apartment that Natasha knew as his home.

She missed it, the creased leather sofa and mismatched kitchen chairs, the scattering of belongings on the table and on the floor along the wall because he never bothered to buy shelves. The apartment Natasha currently occupied was bare, stark and white. She hadn’t bought half of the things she should have done, half of the things her alter-ego needed. She’d planned a call from Jemima’s estranged parents, a _we’re sorry, please come home_ prodigal daughter returns sort of thing. But Jemima didn’t know that yet. She should have been stretching her budget to prepare for motherhood alone.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d sort it out. But she couldn’t even convince herself. Jemima was terrified, she would have been putting it off too. She could play it convincingly, the shame and the fear, should a well-meaning somebody worm their way inside her home. There was no need to do anything more. 

She settled on the sofa and picked up a book, reading the same paragraph six times and putting it down again. Laura wouldn’t leave her alone. 

Her hand had been covered in egg and flour and raw chicken, and she’d pulled it out and looked at it and rinsed it under the sink. Natasha had stood there, waiting, the sick feeling twisting her stomach, the gentle camaraderie of working side by side melting sharply away.

“What the hell was that?” Laura’s back had been turned; she’d faced out the window with her hands in the sink. Her tone had been angry but her voice soft with shock, filling out towards the end of the sentence like she was forcing it to steady.

“I was never going to hit him.” 

“That’s not the point.”

“I don’t miss.”

Laura had turned away from the window, finally making eye contact. There’d been pain in her eyes, like she was stifling a scream.

“Cooper was right there.”

“I don’t miss.”

“Jesus, Nat.” It hadn’t been aimed at her, but at the sky, or perhaps the named almighty (Laura wasn’t religious, but we all call on something in times of need). “That’s not the point.” She’d repeated, just as Natasha had repeated her words, and they were both running against opposite sides of a wall that neither of them could scale.

“Just don’t throw knives, ok? Not in my house. It’s not worth the risk. What if Coop copied you?”

“Ok.” Natasha had nodded. She could take that, apply it as a rule, even though the risk was no more than if it had been a tennis ball. Less, in fact. Tennis balls bounce somewhat unpredictably. And Cooper hadn’t seen.

“Jesus.” Laura had closed her eyes, slumping back against the counter-top. Natasha had taken a moment to imagine what she was seeing, flashing through her mind. Clint, perhaps, with a paring knife through his eye. Her stomach had twisted further.

“I won’t do it again.” She’d said, more meaning behind the words. The risk hasn’t been real, but Laura’s fear had. That should have been a factor. “I’m sorry.”

Laura had nodded, moving past to dry her hands on the towels hanging on the radiator. She’d piled the chopping boards and bowls in the sink, filling it with warm water and a squirt of washing up liquid. Suddenly, she’d turned around again.

“Why did you do it?”

“He was being a pain.” Natasha had answered, and Laura had raised an eyebrow, “You threw a wet towel at him yesterday.”

“Wet towels don’t maim.”

“Neither do knives unless I mean them to.”`

“What if he’d moved?”

“He wasn’t going to. I can tell.”

“You’re terrifying.”

Natasha had smiled slightly, “That’s kind of the point.”

The tension had left Laura’s body in a rush of air blown out between her teeth. She’d taken her time hanging the neatly folded cloth over the tap and switching the oven off. She’d turned to face Natasha.

“We should talk.”

Their sofa was new, a matching armchair squatting opposite. A pile of plumped cushions and a blanket crocheted by someone’s Grandma adorned the back. 

“We should have had this conversation yesterday. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. It’s just—“ Laura had stopped,“I told Clint you should come, and then suddenly you were here and I wasn’t ready.”

Natasha had stayed silent. She hadn’t wanted to take control of the conversation. Silence made it easier.

“He told me what you asked him.” She was so matter-of-fact. “There’s a couple of things I want to ask you.”

She’d inclined her head a fraction, waiting.

“Why do you want this?” she’d asked, gaze clear and open.

The answer hadn’t been easy. Natasha’d grappled for over a week to even feel around the edges of it, to find what she did want, let alone its reason for being. Her self, her will, was difficult to nail down. 

“Because I threw a knife at Clint’s head.”

Laura had raised an eyebrow again, a well-honed response to a capricious three year-old and a husband with a penchant for the ridiculous. It’s _go on, explain yourself, you know that’s not an answer on its own._

Natasha had struggled for words that wouldn’t carve out her own insides. “I think— I think I remember what it felt like. To have family. Or a part of it.” She steeled herself, to allow herself desire. “I want that.”

“Then why not keep it yourself?”

“Because I threw a knife at Clint’s head.”

The eyebrow again, but softer this time, the edge of understanding.

“I don’t know what’s normal. And I don’t think I know how to love. Not enough. Not like that.”

Laura had thought for a while, her face moving through emotions.

“I like you, Nat, knife-throwing aside.” She’d smiled, “I don’t know if I agree with you, but I think I understand what you’re saying. Adopting… It might sound strange but that’s not what worries me. Being pregnant wasn’t much fun for me, and I’m more than happy to go without it this time around.” 

She’d trailed off. Natasha prompted her, knowing what the answer would be.

“What does worry you?”

“You do.”

_Well, yes, there is that._

Ping.

Natasha started, wrenching her mind back to the present as three cheery notes resonated in the bare space. She grabbed her laptop gratefully off the floor, moving back over to the table and sitting down. Her days of contorting herself to work at the low coffee table were long gone.

A series of grainy surveillance videos awaited her, attached to a note from Fury: _See what you make of these._ They were related to her trip to Rome the previous year: the Italian foreign minister in a series of under-the-radar meetings. It was unlikely to be anything more than low-level government corruption, but Natasha settled in to watch them all the same. 

She was almost embarrassingly grateful for these sporadic packets from Fury: videos and financial reports and terabytes of data to sift through. Hundreds of pages of Russian documents for translation, on one occasion. His reasons for sending them were becoming more tenuous, his motivation more transparent as the months wore on, but Natasha had yet to call him on it. After the initial shock, the blurred panic, her world shifting and changing almost daily she’d entered a kind of purgatory. An incredibly boring purgatory with far too much time spent in the bathroom.

Jemima worked a few days a week as a receptionist at the local pool. She attended doctor’s appointments and a social group for expectant mothers and avoided the over-enthusiastic attentions of Marjory. She ran and had played tennis for a while and Natasha trained in the living room with the blinds pulled shut. It’d been a long time since she’d been undercover for an extended period of time. It was difficult to stay in shape under the guise of a normal person. Especially a pregnant one. 

It caught her sometimes. She submerged herself so thoroughly in Jemima, in her fears and her joys and her loneliness. She forgot which parts she could shed when she locked her front door. She’d find herself deep in conversation about breastfeeding and all of a sudden it’d be too real. She’d remember that it was _her_ stomach refluxing and burning acid up her throat, _her_ balance out of kilter, _her_ body ballooning and morphing under her hands, changing to accommodate someone _else_. 

The baby shifted, as if she knew she was being thought about, a light nudge in the bladder that said _I’m right here you know_. Natasha blinked and focussed on the surveillance footage, forcing back the urge to rush to the bathroom. _I know, it’s ok._ She closed her eyes for a second. _I’m just…_ She didn’t know how that sentence should end.

The videos were boring and repetitive and Natasha let the back of her mind wander, waiting for a jolt of significance from the portion focussing intently on the flickering pixels. Her thoughts drifted back to Laura, the numbness spreading through her, a weird sense of relief. She’d been mad to even ask.

“I get it.”

“Do you?” Laura had looked surprised, a little taken aback. “I’m worried that you’re thinking of this as some halfway house, some…. in between. Once you give up a child, you can’t change your mind.” 

That hadn’t been what Natasha had expected, at all. She’d felt a little indignant, in the moment, not at Laura’s insinuation but at her unconcern about raising a child with Natalia Romanova’s DNA threaded through her. She was too used to people’s fear. She must be a strange person, to miss something like that.

“I know I can’t.”

“Do you?” Laura had repeated.

Every response had sounded childish, a little petulant. She’d been backed into a corner of her own making. Her explanation hadn’t been right. She was only good with words when they belonged to someone else. 

“I didn’t mean I wanted a family. I mean—“ She’d stopped, stumbling over glass, feeling so unlike herself. But she’d been asking Laura to change her life and she’d deserved the painful truths, “Maybe. Not like this. Not now. But knowing she came from me, knowing I could give her…this. That would be something. I could leave, after. And I’d never come back if you didn’t want me too.” She’d met her eyes, “I’m good at disappearing.”

Some of the tension had seeped out of Laura shoulders, “I’m not asking you to leave and never come back. I want you in our lives. But…” She’d run a hand through her hair, fingers tangling in the ends. “My children will always come first.”

“Good.”

Laura had smiled at her and Natasha had been raw, exposed in a way she never allowed herself to be. Her body had been screaming at her to run, out of the door and away over the fields, to never come back to this house where people _knew_ her. A dark part of her mind had been telling her she should kill them, she’d given too much, they had too much power. But she’d sat on her hands and waited it out, focussing on Cooper’s primary-coloured toy train, abandoned on the floor. 

“You have something else to say.” She said.

Laura’s head had been turned towards a bird settled on the porch, her eyes glazed and unfocussed. Where did her mind go, when she looked like that?

“You said there were ‘things’. We’ve done one.”

“Right, yes.” She’d composed herself, her expression turning sheepish, “This is awkward. I’m sorry. I just need to know that no-one else is going to want them.”

An image appeared: a copper-haired baby, a pair of blue-veined hands reaching for her, caressing her cheek. Natasha had frozen, nausea churning her gut. Laura’s expression had dropped through confused to concerned. 

It clicked.

A spark of humour had fired through her brain. She’d completely misunderstood. 

“No. There’s no-one. I met him in a bar one night. He was nice enough. He didn’t know anything about me.” She’d shrugged, “I can find out more, if you want.”

Laura had shaken her head, “No. I just didn’t want… I don’t know, an irate SHIELD agent turning up here one day.” 

“What do you take me for?” Natasha had scoffed, “I don’t shit where I eat.” And Laura had met her eyes and laughed. 

Her stomach had been uneasy though, the fear still creeping through her gut, “Are you saying yes?”

“I think I am.”

Natasha had swallowed.

“No-one can know.”

“Of course.”

“I’m serious, Laura.” There hadn’t been enough weight to her words, “I can’t— _No-one_.” 

Her voice had sharpened, violence that shouldn’t have crept in. Laura hadn’t shied away. She’d taken both of Natasha’s hands in hers and met her eyes, “I understand. No-one will know.”

Natasha had nodded. She’d wanted to thank her, to say something meaningful, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I’ll put the oven back on. Dinner’ll be half an hour.” She’d said, like the world hadn’t changed, like the future hadn’t resettled around them. 

Natasha had sat for a few moments, watching clouds rush past the window in a whirl of white. She’d stood up.

“Don’t wait for me to eat.”

Laura had glanced up from the bubble mountain swiftly forming in the sink “I’ll leave a plate in the oven.”

Natasha had let herself out, walking over terrain more familiar with each passing year. She’d needed to be outside, to keep moving, to stop herself from thinking about what she’d just done. One hundred and fifty seven steps to the tree line, the ground slightly damp and the leaves starting to turn. Two hundred and seventeen more and the path rose, climbing steadily until it broke out of the shadows onto the exposed hilltop, the wind playing with the lonely grasses and her hair a red-orange blur in her eyes.

She’d paused for a moment, gathering it in one hand and twisting at the nape of her neck, lamenting the lack of taming elastic on her wrist. She’d been able to see the farmhouse from there, a little picture-perfect toy dwelling. If it’d been a fairytale there would have been smoke curling from the chimney, white marshmallow puffs drifting across the sky.

But instead the sky had been darkening, a storm slowly brewing. She’d stood on the hilltop and watched the lights blinking on, a patchwork of warm yellow against the grey. 

She’d made (would be making) a connection here, laying down a root she’d never be able to tear up. She’d felt it, reeling out behind her as she’d walked away from the house, a sharp tug to _these_ people, _this_ place. She’d thought it would feel like a leash, like every chain they’d tried to hold her with. 

But it hasn’t been like that. It had been more like an anchor, keeping her steady as she—

_Hang on. There. Just—_

Natasha rewound the video, squinting at the blurred figures. 

There was one, standing in the corner. His hands moved in a familiar gesture she couldn’t quite place. She ran the video forward again, relaxing her mind as he shifted in her peripheral vision.

There was a hook. A sleepless night with Clint at her kitchen table. The morning after. In the gym. A group of cadets. A blur of young faces. _(Some born before her, but none older than her)_ And one stood apart, a few steps back. Studiously superior and disinterested.

She squinted at the screen. Same guy. Same way of standing, same half a step back as when she’d landed amongst them. 

Interesting.

She leant back in her chair, the wood creaking under her weight and her hands spread on the table top. Fury had been cryptic, as ever. No real context to his request. This man could have been a leak, or he could have been a plant. Or both.

She pulled up SHIELD’s personnel files. She shouldn’t have had access but she’d wormed her way through security long ago. She’d needed to know who she was working for.

The connection was slow, the annoying little egg-timer flashing relentlessly. He wasn’t listed under this year’s Ops cadets, but _there_ with the other newest recruits.

Grant Douglas Ward, he of the terribly written report, pale and dark-haired, a certain intensity in his expression that had marked him apart from the crowd of fresh faces. Pulled out of some shady sounding military training scheme. Which didn’t mean anything. Clint had been recruited from a jail cell.

Natasha’s abdomen jolted and she sat back, a calming hand moving instinctively to her stomach. It’d never occurred to her that a foetus would hiccup but it had become a strange kind of rhythm to her day. It alerted her to the vociferous complaints of her bladder. _Fine, you win._ She sighed and scraped her chair back, leaving the screen open as she hurried to the bathroom.

On her return, she flicked back to the surveillance video. Blurry Grant Ward was solemn and reserved. The Foreign Minister stood up and he stepped backwards to open the door. 

Hang on.

Natasha rewound the footage, squinting at the screen.

That wasn’t the same step.

She wound all the way back, searching in vain for the hand gestures that had hooked the copy in her memory. She studied his face. It was too pixelated to make out his features, but his head didn’t have the right proportions. She looked back at the photograph. It wasn’t Ward.

 _Damn it._ She’d been so sure. 

She scrubbed a hand over her face. Her brain was fuzzy and exhausted. She hated it, hated how even her mind felt different. A little less sharp, a little less focussed. She was in limbo in a body that wasn’t her own. Untethered and strangely detached.

She was desperate for another croissant. The bag of crumbs on the table mocked her silently. 

….

The lights were bright behind her as the door closed, pools of yellow streetlamp spilling out into the darkness ahead. It was gloriously peaceful after the noise and clamour within. Someone’s bright idea of a fun evening: drinking mocktails and gossiping as the volume increased and the air filled with sweat and alcohol. Jemima had been happy to go along for the ride, happy to be included, but Natasha’s patience was wearing thin. 

Outside, she leant briefly against the wall, breathing in the air. Not fresh, but free of the cloying stench of other people. A couple wandered past, glancing askance at her rounded belly, their eyes flicking between it and the flashing lights behind her. She winked at them. Jemima was slipping away.

She thumbed a quick text to Jane, the organiser of tonight’s ill-judged gathering: _Feeling a bit off. Gonna head home. I’ll see you next week._

She walked away down the street. Her car was parked behind her but she needed to breathe, stride around the block and work off the heat and the darkness and the endless thumping noise. The sidewalk was busy, not crowded, small gaggles of people walking briskly, coats buttoned up and hands jammed in pockets.

She passed a few bars, a scattering of restaurants and a Chinese take-out before the lights petered out, giving way to houses buttoned up against the night. She took a left and registered footsteps behind her, the wandering stumble of two drunk young men. Harmless, but Jemima clutched her purse closer to her body, picked up her pace. She took another left and crossed the street, glancing behind her. They’d stopped on the corner. Not looking at her, having an argument about something she couldn’t decipher.

Jemima’s heart-rate steadied and her pace evened out. The moon was bright overhead, silver light picking out the neatly trimmed hedges and smooth white-washed walls. Windows lit up sporadically in orange-yellow, silhouettes reading or arguing or watching TV. It was like a strange sort of shadow-play, a series of vignettes for her eyes alone.

A woman strode towards her, messenger bag slung over her shoulder and shoes clipping on the sidewalk. She was staring at something on the other side of the street, walking fast and not watching where she was going. Before Jemima could react the woman had barrelled into her, knocking her sideways and stumbling into a wall.

“Shit. Shit. I’m so sorry.” The woman stumbled too, gaining her balance and taking in Natasha/Jemima’s obviously pregnant form. “Oh fuck. I am really sorry. Are you ok?”

Natasha straightened herself, regaining her footing. The fall had been careful and calculated.

“Do you need anything? A cup of tea or something? I just live across the street.” She gestured vaguely in the direction she’d been staring, tucking an escaped lock of hair behind her ear with one hand.

“I’m fine. Thanks, but I’m on my way home.”

“Are you sure?” The woman stepped forward, “Please come inside, just for a little while. I’d never forgive myself if...” she trailed off, glancing at Natasha’s stomach and chewing her lip in concern.

“I’m fine, really. Thanks for the offer but I really need to get home.” There was a niggle in Natasha’s head, an alarm bell ringing. “Have a good evening.” 

She turned, back the way she’d come. A hand reached out to grab her arm. She let it happen, no point showing her cards too soon, and then twisted out of her grip, Jemima’s fear all over her face, “Please stop. I don’t know you and I just want to go home.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. 

“Well, why don’t we get to know each other?” 

She surged forward, backing Jemima against the garden wall, gripping her arm tight and pulling her into the gap between two houses.

Natasha waited for the shadows.

She had a knife hidden in her waistband, and she knew with sudden clarity that she’d kill herself before she let them take her back. But she hoped, desperately, that it wouldn’t come to that. She’d rather kill them first.

She moved, retrieving the knife with her free hand and twisting the woman’s wrist behind her back, pressing her against the wall with the blade held to her throat. It was too simple, too quick, too easy, and she waited for the other shoe to drop, for the accomplices to reveal themselves. Her movements were slower and less fluid than ever, her balance off, and she was deathly afraid that she wouldn’t be able to protect the life fluttering below her ribcage.

Nothing arrived but silence. The woman grunted into the brickwork as Natasha twisted harder on her arm.

“Who sent you?” She hissed into her ear, “What do you want?” The blade shifted, nicking the woman’s throat, and she let out a squeak of fear.

“Your purse. I was trying to steal your fucking purse.”

The words didn’t process. All Natasha could see were shadowy faces in the snow, features she couldn’t grasp in her mind. Her bare cell and her sisters dying one by one and the constant voice in her head, tugging on her strings. 

“I won’t let you take her.”

“Not your baby. Your purse. I wanted your purse.” The woman whispered, eyes closing. Her fear and her pulse fluttered lightly against Natasha’s palm. She let go, stepping backwards warily, knife still drawn. 

It’d be now, when they would show their hand. She reached out, feeling for the dark presences that must be surrounding her. The darkness was blank, her mind foggy and her senses stunted. 

The woman leant her forehead against the wall, hands trembling against the brickwork. 

“Who are you?” Natasha said.

The woman turned, “No-one. I’m absolutely no-one.” Her hand drifted up to her neck, smearing a drop of blood across it, “Who…what the hell are you?”

Natasha slipped away, Jemima stepping swiftly into the breech, “N—No-one.” Her hand shook on the knife. She gripped it steady with both hands, “Just get away from me.”

“I’m gone.” The woman tried to sneer but didn’t quite make it, her eyes narrowing as she backed towards the sidewalk. Her shoes clipped as she ran down the street, leaving Natasha alone in the dark.

She folded the knife into her waistband and waited, standing alone between the houses, the perfect target. If they were there, she needed to know. Time passed and she didn’t move. The wind whistled and one of the drunk young men staggered past, calling out to her, “You alright sweetheart?”

She nodded, “Yeah,” and he moved on, swiftly forgotten. 

An hour passed, maybe, and that was it, that was enough. No-one was coming. Sometimes a thief was just a thief. 

Natasha strode down the street as though nothing had interrupted her, as though she’d just left Jane and Marjory and the others in the bar. She was exhausted and uncomfortable and desperate for an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

Her car was parked where she left it and she glanced into the backseat before opening the door. There was a phone burning a hole in the lining of her purse, and she had to call, it was nearly too late, but she’d been hoping that somehow she wouldn’t have to. She’d never quite fall off that cliff edge.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Tasha?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank-- We were worried. You weren’t checking in.”

“It got…real.”

“No shit.” There was a pause on the end of the line, a scratching and a whisper as he covered the handset. Then: “Are you coming?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Is everything ok?”

She rested a hand on her stomach, felt a brief fluttering within, closed her eyes and breathed out, “Yes. Everything’s fine.” 

“Will you be ok driving?” 

He was clucking over her. This was why she’d stopped calling. She needed his partnership, his easy rapport, not….this.

“Yes, Clint. I am a grown-ass adult capable of making my own decisions. I’ll be with you around lunchtime.” Her voice was sharp but she couldn’t take it back. 

“Ok.” He said, crackling down the line, “Ok, just—let me know when you leave.”

“Sure.” And she knew his worry came from the same place as hers, but she wished he would just back off, just slip back to normal for five minutes. Just let her stop thinking and _be._

She hung up and drove back to her apartment, snapping her laptop open at the kitchen table and lining up a series of emails and text messages and voicemails to trickle out over the next few days. Precisely snipping along the seams, severing Jemima from her short-lived life in Illinois. One after another, she wrote and read and talked into the handset, the screen too bright and the lights too dark and the moon casting strange shadows across the floor. 

She slept when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, short and broken and confused but it got her through to morning, to the sun streaming in through the bedroom window and a familiar, pressing need to urinate. She took everything, all the trappings of Jemima’s life and then she was in the car, steering wheel uncomfortably close, west down I-88 with the sun rising golden behind her.

Everything was so bright, the sky so incredibly blue. Her back was aching, and she shifted to straighten it out. She got breakfast from a rest-stop vending machine, piled snacks in the passenger seat and drove straight through, farmland flashing by as she travelled further and further from civilisation.

The rocks were closing in, jagged edges, sharp and unforgiving. She’d be torn apart by the impact but there was no stopping it now. She’d fallen months ago. 

She drove onwards, staring straight ahead. If she kept going, if she didn’t stop, maybe the journey didn’t have to end. Maybe she could just keep falling forever.

….

Her tyres crunched on the track, the familiar twists and turns, the pothole marking the turn off and the shadows of just-green trees flickering sunlight in her eyes. 

Bump. The car stopped. Closer now, the rocks were almost touching distance. Every crevice was coming clear, the exact shape her body would twist and crunch and break when she hit them. She wrenched the handbrake, turned the key in the ignition. Clint ran from the house, jumping four steps. He opened the door, saw her face.

“Nat?”

“I think I’m in labour.”

Half an hour ago, the first sharp twist, an ache and a pulling. Not like she’d had before, not easing as she shifted, but coming again and a third time as she’d pulled into the driveway. 

It wasn’t early, not really, less than a week. She’d left it too late, but Laura’s sister couldn’t take Cooper for more than a fortnight and the window was tight, so tight, but she’d just slipped through. She was fine. It had gone for now, she didn’t need Clint’s arm on her waist as she maneuvered out of the car.

Laura was watching from the doorway. Emotions flitted and morphed across her face. She was nervous, for sure, regretful? Maybe. Natasha couldn’t tell from this distance but it was too late. A manic laugh bubbled up inside her. It was far too late.

She was inside, on the sofa, and Clint was making tea. A warm mug appeared in front of her, a plate of cookies and a bowl of fruit. The house was warm and soft and worn around the edges and _jesus_ is this how real people lived? _(It was. It was how her daughter would live)_. Was this where Laura had sat, Cooper pressing at her insides, readying himself to enter the world? Did Clint hover beside her, like he was doing now, faint desperation in his eyes, the need to help, to fix things, to ease the way?

Another one came. She counted the seconds. It wasn’t painful. It was nothing (yet). It was muscles moving, contracting, readying themselves. It was a process that her body knew but she’d never learnt and she was just a passenger, along for the ride.

Laura plumped down on the sofa opposite her, a mug held tight between her hands, “Movie?” 

Natasha raised an eyebrow and she smiled gently, “We’ll be here a while yet.”

There was that ‘we’ again, making Natasha’s skin tight and claustrophobic. She shrugged and they flicked through the channels, found a Sunday afternoon Star Wars marathon. At least it would be long.

Clint disappeared somewhere, the whir of power tools drifting through from the dining room next door. He reappeared every half hour or so, jittery and tense, producing snacks and soup and a whole ocean of tea.

“How long now?”

“Fifteen minutes.” Laura muttered as Natasha stared at the images flickering in front of her, and he nodded and disappeared again. Twelve minutes. Then ten. Her body twisting and pulling. The sun went down and Han said I know and it was forever and no time at all before the tables turned and Leia echoed it back. Natasha scoffed. Seven minutes.

Laura’s hand was holding hers. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Her insides contracted and she squeezed because it was expected. And then again five minutes later.

“Nat, I’m going to call the mid-wife now.”

She nodded. It was the last thing she wanted, to drag someone else in, to upset the fragile balance between the three of them. Another pair of eyes, another hole, another mouth to talk. But she had no choice.

Her eyes followed the texture in the ceiling, whirling peaks and valleys, a pattern and a puzzle to solve. The mattress was soft. When did they go upstairs? Her insides contorted, tearing. It was so hot.

There was a woman standing over her, dark hair and green eyes. She was saying things, nonsense things, about breathing and pushing and a head between her legs. As if it wasn’t a squirming, vile, formless thing, shifting and twisting, turning her inside out.

Laura was somewhere near. Maybe that was her hand on her shoulder. She did what they said, blindly, to recover her body and mind. They seemed concerned by her silence. Was she supposed to be screaming? She grunted and Laura’s hand relaxed.

There was a cry, sharp and piercing.

Oh. That was quick.

The cord was cut, and the thing was cleaned and wrapped and warm. And no-one seemed to know what to do. Laura was holding her.

She looked at Natasha, a question in her eyes.

The pillows were soft as she shook her head, leant back and drifted away.

It wasn’t formless at all.

She was beautiful.

…

“Tasha?”

_Shit._

She didn’t turn around. 

"Are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

It was dark, quiet, the tiniest snuffle cracking through the air.

“You could stay…”

Her lip twisted, “No.”

The clock ticked in the corner, passing the seconds. Natasha swung her backpack onto her shoulders and walked towards the door.

“Have you held her?”

She closed her eyes. The door handle was cool and hard beneath her palm.

“She’s your daughter, Clint.”

“I know.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Take care of yourself.”

The latch clicked quietly, footsteps soft on the wooden porch and damp grass tickling her ankles. She was insubstantial, a shadow sliding across the fields, a ghost driving empty roads to the airport. 

A cord spun out behind her, stretching and twisting and tangling.

In the air over Pennsylvania, there was a twang as it finally snapped.  


  
  
  
  



	3. Goodge Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her apartment was shrouded in shadow as she pushed the door open, a shadow within a shadow sat in her living room, occupying the best armchair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay in getting this chapter out - Christmas and New Year happened and then, as usual, I got sick... Hope it's worth the wait.

Her apartment was shrouded in shadow as she pushed the door open, a shadow within a shadow sat in her living room, occupying the best armchair.

“Welcome back.” Fury leant on her coffee table, three bottles and two glasses lined up neatly upon it. It felt like a ritual, like something she should have expected.

“Are you here to babysit me?” She dropped her bag by the door and collapsed heavily onto the sofa.

“No.” He poured two glasses and pushed one towards her.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

_Why not, indeed._

“I might not stop.”

He shrugged, “Your call.”

She had two, in the end. The first tasted bitter, like vinegar and acid on her tongue. She persevered, choked it down and waited to forget. The second made her feel sick.

They didn’t speak and she left abruptly, lay in bed fully-clothed and stared at the ceiling. At some point she must have fallen asleep because suddenly there was sun streaming in through the window and she was blinking away fog with the start of a headache behind her eyes.

She half expected to find Fury sat in the armchair where she’d left him, a silent presence. But he was long gone.

The freezer was full of microwave meals and there was fruit in the bowl and a note tacked to the fridge.

_Two weeks, Romanoff. No less._

…

She watched mindless daytime television and planned the murder of each and every one of her neighbours as they clattered up and down the stairs. Her brain was heavy with fog and her body… 

On day three, she woke suddenly to a grey and overcast sky. The semi-darkness demanded less from her. She showered and dressed and took a walk around the block, emptying the trash on the way, the wind batting at the cobwebs in her mind. 

She’d been ignoring the building pain in her breasts, taking it as just punishment for the utter madness she was slowly waking up from. But that wasn’t how she thought any more, she’d promised herself that. 

She found painkillers in the drawer, sage in the cupboard and cabbage in the fridge. The internet was good for something after all. She hoped Fury had wiped his search history after. 

…

She ran. Not far and not fast but pushing desperately onwards. She’d go mad if she couldn’t work and she’d die working if she wasn’t fit. It had been meant to be over now, life snapping back to normal.

She slowed to a walk, halfway around the block. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d run it all, and she’d be back in the gym at the end of the week, swinging and leaping and dancing. She just had to keep going.

…

_Stop sending me pictures._

She tapped out the message between her thumbs, staring at the little black pixels against the faint green screen. Clint kept emailing her. Tiny perfect fingers and long dark eyelashes on soft ruddy cheeks. 

Her thumb hit send. A few minutes later, the phone buzzed, a harsh vibrate against the table-top.

_Ok._

And a few minutes after that:

_I’m coming back next week._

Natasha leant hard against the back of the couch. Her hand drifted unthinkingly towards her stomach. Empty. As it should be. She was on her own.

…

The microwave beeped.

The last lasagne, greasy cheese and bubbling hot, layers smearing together as she poured it onto a plate. 

Her two weeks were up. She could go back. If she wanted to.

As she sat, something dark caught her eye. She glanced down at the damp patch leaking through her t-shirt. Shit. The pain she’d learnt to ignore, but this was evidence too obvious to go unnoticed.

She sent Fury a text.

_I need more time._

He replied almost instantly.

_I want weekly updates._

She needed to get groceries, to interact with the world. She ate half the lasagne and saved the rest for later.

…

Clint came calling as soon as he was back in the city, predictable as clockwork with five short raps on her front door. 

She opened it with a raised eyebrow, a hundred percent the Natasha of before, winding back a year and playing it over again.

“What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

She stepped aside with an expansive gesture, her lip twitching at the corner, “Mí casa es tu casa.”

He entered and she continued to put her groceries away. Wine, cheese, pate, shellfish. And a bag of sage she hid at the bottom of the drawer. 

“Fancy a drink?”

“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.”

She shrugged. It had never stopped them before. His eyebrows knitted together, concern creasing lines into his skin.

“Stop it, Barton.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop thinking. Nothing happened. I was on a mission in Argentina. It was successful, but I got sick and now I’m recovering. There’s no need to look at me like that.”

“Is that what you want?”

“That’s what happened. Want has nothing to do with it.”

“Ok then.” He took the bottle from her hands and placed it in the cupboard, “We’re still not drinking vodka at eleven o’clock in the morning.”

She pouted.

“I have a much better idea.”

…

He took her to freaking _lasertag_. She resisted vociferously, but he grabbed her arm and whispered, “I thought you were trying to blend in.”

She had been. She was. And if this was something American families did at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning, then she should know about it.

It was kind of fun. They were both too good, obviously. But it was freeing in the dark, the absolute ridiculousness of it all.

It was only in the locker room after, reclaiming their belongings and returning their gear that the problem became apparent.

“I know you’ve had fun, but you gotta give the vest back Nat.”

“I can’t”

“You what?”

He looked at her, looked down. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_.” Her stomach twisted with betrayal.

He handed her his jacket and she shimmied out of the vest before shrugging it on and zipping up tight. 

“Those tropical diseases are weird, huh?” His tone was gentle.

“ _Don’t_.”

…

_I said weekly updates, Romanoff._

_Not yet. I need more time._

…

There were a lot of children in DC. She’d never noticed before.

…

The sun streamed through the window, filtered through the blind in shafts that stabbed her eyes when she shifted. She opened them.

There was something missing.

Something had changed, sometime in the last few days. She rolled out of bed, turned a handstand in the living room, tucked and rolled back to her feet. She landed just right, just there, her head not spinning and her vision perfectly straight. 

She plucked her phone off the table, toyed with it, tossed it between her hands. She had to take one more leap, to pull herself back over the edge.

She didn’t give herself time to think.

_Tomorrow._

The reply was seconds in coming.

_Just in time. My office, nine o’clock._

…

The day dawned grey and dreary. It was appropriate.

Coulson was in Fury’s office, expression typically impassive, pretending not to be at all curious about where she’d been, about what was so top secret that he’d been skipped out of the chain of command.

He handed her a pile of files.

“We need a hard-drive. There’ll be a handover at the end of next week, in London. You’re going to intercept. Barton’s on point. You’ll have Morse and Ward at your disposal.” 

“Sir?” She cocked an eyebrow. 

“MI5 wants it too.”

They arranged a strategy meeting after lunch, and Coulson left the room.

“Romanoff.”

“Director?”

“How are you?”

It wasn’t a question she’d ever heard cross Fury’s lips. It tipped the day into the twilight zone.

“Fine, Director.” He was silent, “Completely recovered.”

“Glad to hear it.”

She waited. Impatience bubbled under her skin.

“Am I dismissed?”

He paused. She cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

…

“Having fun?” Clint chirped in her ear.

Natasha ground her teeth in frustration as a tall Asian mad stopped directly in front her. She stepped around him, pushing through the crowds of tourists milling around at the top of the tube station steps. 

Oxford Circus. On the first sunny Saturday afternoon of the year.

She’d have quite liked to kill someone, but it (probably) wasn’t that sort of mission.

Retreating against a glass store front, she squinted upwards. Clint was a dark smudge on the rooftop across the street. She was too much of a professional to flip him off.

“Direction?”

“Behind you. Towards Tottenham Court Road. He—hang on.” Natasha twitched as a burst of white noise filled her earpiece, “Morse, your man’s just exited the station. He’s heading north. I’m gonna lose him.”

“Copy.” Bobbi’s reply was brief and functional.

Natasha strode along the sidewalk, passing repetitive cheap fashion and fast food. She searched for somewhere she’d hate more, and could only come up with Times Square, five hours from now.

“Nat, your guy’s just passing H&M. Big red sign.”

She glanced behind her at the store she’d just passed, “I thought you said east.” It came out with a sigh, bursting out between her teeth.

“There’s another one. Just—Keep going. He’s wearing a beige t-shirt and jeans.”

She scanned the crowds ahead of her, neatly side-stepping a Spanish school group, matching hats and a flag pole at the head. There was a man just past them, his gait out of place although she couldn’t have articulated why, “Got him.”

The radio chatter continued and she tuned it out, her brain filtering the unnecessary information. Her target wasn’t going to get within fifty yards of the exchange site.

She trailed him along Oxford Street, weaving through obnoxiously large shopping bags and children sticky with ice cream. The man was on a call, a real one, she was fairly sure. Not many people can fake a one-sided conversation. People don’t talk like they think they do. Most conversations are two separate monologues, crashing against each other but never quite touching. No-one ever answers the question they were asked.

A bus pulled up, red and shiny and over-crowded, and she studied his reflection in the window. Bland, was all she could say. Pale, some stubble, not enough to call rugged. Hair somewhere between mousy brown and dark blond. No remarkable features other than his extreme ordinariness.

He soon hung a left, slipping into a smaller street. She followed. The crowds thinned as the attractions petered out. A shop and a few cafes, swiftly dwindling to three- or four-storey brick terraces and the spindly form of the BT Tower rising behind them. There was something alien about it, viewed from this obnoxiously ordinary street. 

She _could_ make a scene whilst there were still enough hapless passers-by to be effective. But she wasn’t much in the mood. Irrational anger bubbled under her skin, piercing through the numbness and waiting to be let loose. They’d soon be surrounded by office buildings, conveniently empty and deserted on a Saturday afternoon. 

A commotion dragged her attention back to the airwaves. Morse had opted for making a scene. It seemed to be working nicely.

Another voice, male and less familiar, “I’m closing in. Five minutes.” Ward was lined up to take the hard drive. Everything was falling into place.

“Nat?” Clint’s voice held a hint of concern.

“Go ahead.”

“Still heading north?”

“Yes.”

He was quiet for a few moments.

“The package is going south.”

“Great.”

She watched as her target put his phone back into his pocket.

“Am I following some guy on a shopping trip?”

“No. That’s our guy. I’m sure of it.”

If Clint was sure, then he was sure. Which left two possibilities: decoy (annoying, but perhaps not fatal to the mission), or trap (even more annoying, possibly more fatal). She sighed, but a frisson of energy sparked through her. There was a comfort in this, a sideways step into a well-known routine.

Ahead of her, the man pulled his phone out and something white fluttered to the ground. She bent to pick it up as she passed.

_Goodge Street Station._  
_Southbound platform._  
_Ten minutes._

And underneath, an hourglass drawn in blotchy red ink. 

She crumpled the paper and stuffed it in her back pocket, the thrum of adrenaline building in her veins. This was dangerous, this feeling, the warning signals spurted in the back of her brain. But they were unceremoniously quashed. She’d been a passenger too long, forced into passivity and excruciating patience. Now, she had something to do. Now, it was time to act.

“I’m going dark. Rendezvous in three hours, location romeo.”

A splutter filled her ear as she flicked the switch and sunk into blessed silence.

The hunt was on.

…

The station was quiet when she exited the elevators, following the signs to the southbound platform. A smattering of tourists and teenagers loitered, waiting impatiently for the next train. She stuck her hands in her pockets and played at being one of the teenagers, slouching against the wall and avoiding eye contact. 

Her mark wasn’t there yet. She scanned for anything out of place, a nervous shift or a too-hard stare or a conversation flowing too smoothly.

A train arrived. The tourists and teenagers boarded in noisy chaos. A scattering of people alighted and moved off the platform. She glanced at her watch and sighed theatrically, looking back towards the elevators as if waiting on a late companion. Her phone came out of her pocket and she fiddled with it impatiently, thumbs flickering over a mindless game.

Two trains came and went. They were trying to make her nervous. She laughed internally, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes unconcernedly.

Someone stepped up beside her.

“You should be more careful.” He dangled her phone in his right hand.

“It’s a bomb.” She deadpanned. His eyes widened and she swiped it back, laughing wildly, a manic thread weaving itself in, “And now you’ll never know.”

“Funny.” 

Closer up, he was as indistinguishable as she’d thought. Uninteresting brown-blonde hair lightly windswept, average height, average build. Mismatched brightly coloured socks steering him just the right side of boring. Too average to be average.

“What do you want?” She looked at him directly. They always expected to dance with her, to unpeel the layers, unravel the mystery. They believed they’d find what lay beneath. But there was no mystery. She simply became a new person, whoever they wanted to see.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

She laughed again, “What do _I_ want? Money, power, pants with pockets…”

An old lady arrived and sat on the bench next to them. They ignored each other until she was spirited away by the next train, rumbling and squeaking past the platform.

“What are you offering?”

“Resources.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He was trying to dance, to withhold, to initiate a push and pull. He was a romantic, obscuring the simple truth of the game with unnecessary complications and he didn’t respond well to her bluntness. He wanted her to dig for it. He wanted her to want to dig for it.

“Are you offering me a job?”

“Of a sort.”

“I’m going to need more than that.” She crossed her arms over her chest, staring him out like the petulant teenager she was pretending to be. 

“We’ve been paying attention.” He was pretentious as shit. And who were ‘ _we_ ’?

“I highly doubt it.” She leant back against the wall, one leg shifting impatiently, “Go on then, tempt me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m like a rabbit in a burrow down here.”

“We can help you find it.” He waited expectantly. He was searching for the hook, the one thing they could offer that might draw her in before she knew exactly what she was being drawn in to.

She gestured expansively, “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Sorry, beat you to it.”

“The Red Room.” She raised an unimpressed eyebrow, “The place you were raised, the bunker you never found. The only part that didn’t burn.”

“Why do you think I care?”

“Don’t you?”

“I burned my parents to death when I was three years old. I’m not the caring type.”

“You’re not at all like I’d imagined.” 

She wasn’t biting. He was boring her. He’d lose interest soon. Then things might get interesting.

“And you’re… I have no idea who you are.” She said.

He smiled, smug and self-satisfied. She’d finally taken his hand to dance, “We rule the world. We bring order. You could be part of that.”

Danger zinged sharp through the air. Not for her life, but for everything she had with SHIELD. She _could not_ have a shoot-out with a British intelligence agent in a London tube station. Whoever he was really working for. She’d lose everything.

“That doesn’t seem like my style.” The next train wasn’t due for five minutes. The elevator was a death trap. That left the stairs.

“That’s a shame.” 

His hand moved. It pinged a warning. It was time to go.

Natasha leant towards him, “You’re sweet.” She muttered in his ear, and shoved him hard in the chest. “ _Get away from me you pervert!_ ” She shouted, staggering backwards. A few heads turned. It was disappointingly unlikely that anyone would intervene.

She sprinted down the platform towards the exit, pushing through gaggles of people heading for the elevators. _This staircase has 136 steps. Use only in an emergency._ She leapt up them two at a time, footsteps light and silent on the tightly spiralling tiles.

A shout rang out behind, an angry woman’s voice, “ _Stop that man!_ ” and more shouting and cursing and chaos. She smiled, climbing steadily upwards, her hand light on the worn brass rail. 

She hadn’t been joking about being a rabbit in a burrow. If he had any sense, he would have collaborators above her. They’d have the high ground and her only cover would be the tight spiral of the stairs. Her pistol stayed tucked tight in the back of her pants. It would be deafening in this space, all ceramic and concrete and echoes. She’d never get out before the police arrived.

Her heart was pounding uncomfortably in her rib cage, her breathing hard and fast. She ignored it, pushed on harder but it shook her still. Her vision was wavering, cloudy at the edges. It shouldn’t be like this. Five flights of stairs and the length of a station platform. It was nothing. 

A shadow moved above her. She darted right and leapt blindly, grabbing at the handrail and throwing herself higher. Surprise was everything. She counted three pairs of legs as she ducked blows, twisting wildly in the tight space. Two went down with shocks from her gauntlets. The third was somehow below her. She swung her legs around his shoulders, toppling him downwards. Her fingers reached for the handrail.

She missed.

There was a vertiginous moment at the top of the leap, a pause in reality as her fingertips brushed the rail, cool against her skin and the sharp tang of iron in the air. And then she was plummeting downwards twisting hard and fast to protect her head. 

The steps rose up to meet her. She landed on her hands and one knee with a sickening crunch that shot numbness calf to hip. The agent was half on top of her, bleeding from the head, his expression forever frozen in dumbfounded shock. Footsteps rose behind her. She scrambled away, forcing herself upwards, sending three unconscious bodies toppling downwards to slow her pursuer as she passed. She leapt the final flight, her knee pounding white-hot through her at every other step.

In the ticket hall she slowed her pace, slipping out anonymously with the crowds. She forced an even gait. Limping got you noticed. Getting noticed got you killed.

Tottenham Court Road was noisy, the sky filled with white fluffy clouds like candyfloss floating past. She glanced at her watch. There were hours to kill. She could have turned her comm back on. Clint was probably having kittens. But she didn’t. The post-adrenaline high was notably absent. A horrible wrongness, a flatness seeping through her. There had been no need for that, for the air rushing past as she’d crashed wildly downwards. No need at all.

She walked fast. If she made it to Charing Cross Road, then everything was fine. If she could walk that far, a steady cadence in her stride, then it wasn’t a big deal. She hadn’t failed. 

She wove around Tottenham Court Road station, avoiding tourists and shoppers streaming in and out of the unnecessary number of entrances. It wasn’t far enough. She had to reach Trafalgar Square. Charing Cross Station.

Her vision tunnelled and she pushed onwards. One foot in front of the other. Her eyes glazed past the lions and Nelson on his column. Train announcements buzzed through her consciousness. _The 18.48 to Tunbridge Wells is delayed by approximately seven minutes._ A breeze wafted, cool against her cheeks. The Thames twinkled in the lowering sun. Her eyes focussed on the footbridge in front of her, cursing the crowd forming around an enthusiastic busker. She paused at the end, contemplating the stairs down to the South Bank. It would have been easy to rest there, to lean against the railing and admire St Paul’s lighting up pink on the other side of the water.

But she didn’t. This nonsensical challenge had come to mean something. If she could make it all the way, then there was nothing wrong with her. Then she would bounce back, same as she always did. And next time, she wouldn’t miss.

She descended briskly, one foot after the other, matching her pace to the young woman with the backpack two steps ahead. At the bottom she followed the river east, counting benches and collapsing (no, not collapsing, sitting) on the fifth one down.

Here was fine. This was the place, the end of the journey. Only an hour to wait. She could watch the early evening joggers and the boats chugging past on the river. She could watch the buildings opposite turn pink and orange, admire the hodge-podge of mis-matched eras crowding for space. Her eyes screwed shut involuntarily as her knee screamed for attention. She could have caught a bus. 

She should have caught a bus. She knew that. Consciously, intellectually, she knew that she had given birth less than a month ago, literally grown a new human being and squeezed it out of her. She had to give herself time, to cut herself some slack. But it was easier to pretend it had never happened, to let her life close neatly around that minor misadventure. It was protection. If she kept on as though nothing had changed, then everyone was safer.

A blur approached. A child on a scooter, craning backwards, squealing for attention from a distracted parent. He brushed against her toes as he passed and she bit down hard on her tongue, her mouth filling with the coppery taste of blood.

The sun was gently lowering, the water turning glassily opaque as the shadows lengthened. A sharp chill snapped through the air, a reminder that it was still early in the year, that the trees weren’t quite blossoming though the daffodils swayed gently in the breeze. She pulled her jacket tight around her, stopping up the cracks against the invading tendrils of cold. Warmth was a luxury she was loathe to give up.

She listened to the people passing, to the rhythm of their footsteps and the rise and fall of their conversation. There were patterns in it, the clipping stride of hurry and intent, the soft padding and breathless gasp of an out-of-practice runner, the strained cry of seagulls, confused and a little far from home. Her eyes closed and she wove the tapestry in her mind, a web of observations, of life viewed from the outside.

Clint’s footsteps strode towards her from the bridge. He had an athletic stride and relaxed purpose that was impossible to miss, threaded through today with a subtle bouquet of tension. The bench creaked as he dropped beside her and she blinked her eyes open, squinting at the sun dazzling off the water. He filled the air with frustration.

“Where did you go?”

He was tightly controlled, his voice feigning calm as his body screamed otherwise. 

“Goodge Street.”

His teeth ground together, little clicks and snaps buried in an outrush of breath.

“…why?”

She shifted on the bench, lifting one hip to pull a crumpled piece of paper from her back pocket. Her knee screeched, but it belonged to someone else so it didn’t bother her. She offered it to him, the creases soft between her fingertips.

He unfolded it and absorbed the scratchy biro lines. One of his eyebrows twitched, voice filled with derision, “Jesus Nat, is that all it takes?”

He was ramping up, wound up tight like clockwork. She waited for the outburst, her spine calcifying, hardening her insides. She could have offered justification. She did her job, after all. In and out, no harm done. But the tension escaped him in a sudden rush of air and fingers tangling through his too-long hair. 

He sighed, “What did they want?” 

Natasha frowned, movement twitching across her forehead. She parsed the previous two hours, steering clear of the moment her fingers had brushed so delicately against the handrail. “He was trying to recruit me.”

“The British?” Clint’s eyebrows rise in disbelief.

“No…” She trailed off. “He was working for someone else.” She paused squinting at the water, “It felt like a test.”

He sat with his legs apart, a casual recline against the worn wood. There was a deliberate distance between them, a deliberate space. Not close enough to feel the warmth surely emanating from him. He turned to look at her. She stared back, feeling the challenge in his gaze.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.”

He let out a derisive huff of air, not quite a sound, not quite a breath. 

“You got what we needed?”

He nodded shortly.

It had been too easy. Natasha knew when she’d been manipulated. She’d had a lifetime of too much experience. But she couldn’t quite see here, who was pulling their strings. 

Clint was fingering something, a stiff square of paper held carefully between his hands. He was watching the river, eyes lost in its depths. 

Natasha watched Clint’s fingers, worn and callused.

She swallowed. She had a part to play, to shift the universe back into alignment. 

“What did you call her?”

Clint started, his hand tightening. He looked at her with an eyebrow raised. She owned the part like she always did, feeling the imaginary audience, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck.

“Your daughter.” Her lip quirked, a brief flash of laughter at his startled expression, “Or have you already forgotten?”

“No.” He shook his head, “Lila. We called her Lila.”

There was a flutter in her chest. It was a nice name. Nothing that she would have chosen, but nice nonetheless. He unfolded himself from the bench, handing her the paper and stretching dramatically towards the darkening sky. 

“You’ll be alright getting home?”

“Always.” 

He was prodding, feeling out his concern but she didn’t let him near. The plan was piled neatly somewhere at the back of her mind. A couple of motels and separate routes home. She’d survive. 

As he walked away, she looked at what he’d handed her. It was a photograph.

Her stride was stiff and awkward as she walked towards the river. The railing was waist high, the metal cool and hard against her palm. She held on for a moment, memorising the detail. Her vision blurred. She couldn’t keep it.

_Lila._

She weighed the word in her mind and rolled it around her tongue. Night, in Hebrew, perhaps. Not that Clint or Laura were Jewish. She scrolled through languages. Lilac in Spanish. She thought of lilies: a symbol of death, sometimes, and sometimes what comes after.

Her fingernails tore the photo end to end and fluffy white confetti fluttered into the water. It bloated and swelled and sank below the surface. 

There was a pull in her chest, a line reeling her in. It tugged at her as she walked away.

…

  
_“Did you bring Auntie Nat?”_

_The words soak into her mind , an anchor, a touch-point, a rope leading her home. Through the darkness, she smiles._

_“Why don’t you hug her and find out?”_

_Her arms open. Lila fills them. Warm and heavy and fearless and somehow part of her._

_She breathes her in and holds on._

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: unexpected pregnancy, discussions of abortion, reference to forced sterilisation and general Red Room fuckwittery.


End file.
